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2014 Kia Sorento - Review

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8.0

/10

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Like the smaller Sportage, the Sorento now looks decidedly more expensive than its competitors.

Automobile

Nothing has changed in between the stem and stern, except for body-color cladding that replaces the thicker black plastic of previous years.

Autoblog

the Sorento’s furnishings have been upgraded across the board, including soft-touch materials, a redesigned instrument panel, new gauges including a digital speedo (optional), and a new center stack with an optional eight-inch touch screen

Car and Driver

It's a smoother and nicely updated look but not a substantial restyle, as the side profile is virtually unchanged

Cars.com

the 290-hp 3.3-liter is smooth and doesn't sound strained even as it hauls our well-equipped all-wheel-drive Sorento down the highway at 90 mph.

Automobile

the V-6 had to work hard to generate passing power when altitudes climbed north of 3000 feet.

Car and Driver

When the unibody Sorento first debuted in 2009, many a rumble was heard about the crossover's stiff ride – so much so that Kia upgraded the 'ute with Dual Flow Damper shocks in 2011. These units are still in use for 2014, and we found the ride to be on the firm side of comfortable, just as we prefer.

Autoblog

The Sorento's stiffer structure makes the SUV feel more substantial and of a higher quality with less body flex and sloppiness over rough roads.

Cars.com

Second-row passengers now enjoy an additional 30 millimeters (about 1.2 inches) of legroom and those in the third row see an additional 9 millimeters (not quite half an inch). Those aren't massive increases, but any little bit of knee room is appreciated when packing three rows into a crossover of this size.

Autoblog

The Sorento wisely still offers an optional third row, a rarity among mid-size crossovers. The new platform yields slightly more room back there, but we still consider the third row just-in-case or just-for-kids seating, especially since it takes up most of the cargo bay.

Automobile

Although most of the Sorento’s dynamic attributes can be described as competent, there is one area where it seems to rank near the top of the charts for its class: low interior noise.

Car and Driver

The results aren't evident when sitting in the second row, however. The second row now slides, reclines and folds in a 40/20/40 configuration, but at 6 feet tall and slender, I found the space tight even with the seat positioned fully rearward.

The Sorento is the first Kia to offer blind-spot detection, a sonar-based system that alerts the driver with audible and visual warnings of other vehicles lurking in the hard-to-see rear quarters.

Car and Driver

It's both stronger and lighter than before thanks to the increased use of high-strength steel. Kia expects this to help the crossover achieve a five-star crash-test rating (versus the current four stars)

Automobile

Unlike most three-row competitors, the Sorento's side curtain airbags do not extend to the third row.

Cars.com

That money does buy an impressive assortment of technological goodies. Upper-level models like the SX we drove feature LCD screens in the center stack and gauge cluster, heated first- and second-row seats (seats for the driver and front passenger are cooled as well), a panoramic sunroof, blind-spot warning, and a ten-speaker Infinity sound system.

Automobile

Other new equipment—all optional—includes a redesigned sunroof of considerable size with a power shade, ventilated and air-cooled power front seats, heated second-row seats, a 115-volt power inverter, illuminated door handles, and a programmable power rear liftgate.

Car and Driver

Vehicle diagnostics, customized maintenance schedules, roadside assistance and Google Maps join entertainment bits like Pandora and Twitter. Best of all, the services are all free for the first 10 years or 100,000 miles, minus, of course, whatever you already pay for your mobile data plan.

Autoblog

Kia's mess-resistant Yes Essentials cloth seating material is now standard instead of optional on all models, and there are two leather upholstery options.

Fuel mileage comes in at 18 city, 25 highway and 21 combined (18/24/20 with AWD) with the new V6 – a small improvement over the last model's 18/24 rating. We'd have expected a bit more, considering the lack of hydraulic power steering, the addition of direct injection and the notable weight loss.

The Basics:

The 2014 Kia Sorento is not only the Korean company's most popular crossover utility vehicle, but a major update with some new underpinnings, significant upgrades under the hood, a new interior, and additional safety features and infotainment options. Kia says more than 80 percent of the Sorento's parts are significantly redesigned or brand new for 2014, and the result is a thorough reworking that keeps the Sorento competitive in one of the hottest segments of the market.

You might not know the Sorento's been so heavily reworked just by looking at the exterior, though. The 2014 model is a clear continuation of the Sorento design in place since 2011—with a few fresh details that knowledgeable shoppers will be able to pick out. New front and rear fascias and low body work both serve to make the Sorento look a bit lower and wider, while the ‘tiger-nose’ grille gets either an anodized metal or black mesh look, with a cross-hatched pattern in the lower valance. Kia has also added LED combination taillamps and redesigned wheels. Inside, the Sorento gets a new instrument panel, while EX trims and above get a new reconfigurable seven-inch TFT LCD gauge cluster.

The interior of the 2014 Sorento grows incrementally, with slightly more leg room and good seats, now with heating offered on the first two rows and ventilation available up front. We like the Sorento as a five-seater, where it has plenty of legroom and headroom for adults, front and back, yet leaves plenty of cargo space when the back two rows of seats are folded down on three-row versions. There's not much room behind the third-row seat when it's used for passengers, though.

The most meaningful difference for many families may very well be the introduction of a more fuel-efficient V-6. The all-aluminum 3.3-liter GDI V-6 makes 290 horsepower and 252 pound-feet of torque. A 191-hp, 2.4-liter GDI four-cylinder engine is standard, but likely to be rare--and rightly so, since the V-6 almost matches it on gas mileage, and far outpoints it in pure power. The Sorento delivers its power to the road with the help of a well-sorted six-speed automatic transmission; it's either configured with front-wheel drive or with an enhanced torque-vectoring version of the all-wheel-drive system.

Other key upgrades help the Sorento ride less stiffly and steer more swiftly. The Sorento’s hydraulic power steering system has been swapped out for an electric system, and on the Sorento SX it's driver-adjustable through a range of three modes (Comfort, Normal, and Sport), to nominal effect. Ride and handling have been improved through a more rigid body structure plus the addition of a front strut-tower brace and a new independent front suspension with an H-shaped sub-frame cradle; new bushings have been added to the multi-link rear suspension. It's much calmer, and more capable of rounding off pavement burrs than before, though it's still a slightly firm setup compared to the gooey ride of a Highlander.

All versions get standard Bluetooth, satellite radio, and power features; a panoramic sunroof is a new option. The top Sorento SX Limited adds some of the top-lux features gained by the Optima SX this past year; it includes Nappa leather upholstery, heated rear seats, and a wood-trimmed heated steering wheel, plus a soft-touch headliner. On the outside it’s distinguished by its HID headlamps, red-painted brake calipers and special 19-inch chrome wheels.

The rest of the Sorento line gets an expanded feature set for 2014, and especially of note is that infotainment has been upgraded, with a large new eight-inch touch screen that combines navigation, real-time traffic, Infinity premium audio, Bluetooth, and next-generation UVO eServices features that ditch Microsoft's kludgy software for smartphone-driven access to Google maps--for free. A 115-volt power inverter, second-row sliding sunshades, a panoramic sunroof, and dual-ventilated air-cooled front seats are among the other new features for 2014.

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